Chasing Evil (Circle of Evil) (8 page)

“Boelin’s department is poring over the interior bank cameras for the time Van Wheton was inside, in case he did just that,” Jenna put in.

“So you’ve given up on the idea of two offenders working together to keep control over the victim?”

Although she didn’t detect any sarcasm in Cam’s remark, Sophia couldn’t be certain. “It’s too soon to say. But I think we’re overlooking the easiest way of all to control someone from afar. Their fear for a loved one. From what her daughters said, Courtney Van Wheton was very security conscious. She was also hyper vigilant about her daughters’ safety. What if the UNSUB used a parent’s natural fear for her children to control her? Maybe he convinced her somehow he had access to one of them. That they were in danger if Van Wheton didn’t do exactly as he said.” It didn’t escape her notice that they were all talking as if it were certain the woman had fallen victim to the same sadist who had buried six women in Iowa. Nothing had been proven yet.

But Sophia didn’t kid herself. The details of the day were eerily similar to the last time anyone had seen Urban and Williams.

This time she could hear the frown in Cam’s voice. “Van Wheton has daughters, and Williams had kids, but Urban didn’t. Not unless you count ex-stepchildren as old or older than she was, who were spread out across the country.”

Leaning forward, Sophia argued, “But Urban did have a disabled mother in an assisted living facility only thirty minutes from her home.”

“That’s right,” Jenna muttered around a yawn. “I remember that from the file. Fear…it’s the ultimate leverage isn’t it? Wiring the victim prior to sending them into the bank makes good sense, but doesn’t guarantee obedience. Some gutsy victim could have tried passing a note or yanking off the wire and getting help. There was nothing in the ViCAP files about failed attempts of similar crimes. But if the victims are made to believe the life of a loved one is in danger, their cooperation is almost guaranteed.”

“If she’s connected to Urban and Williams, these three women were wealthy and privileged. They lived in gated communities. Van Wheton’s daughters mentioned several times how security conscious their mother was. The offender could find easier prey to kidnap, torture and murder, but these wealthy victims were riskier. Which may motivate the UNSUB as much as the money,” Sophia mused aloud, struck by the sudden thought. Serial offenders often started with low risk victims but as their needs evolved, so did their motivations. Some required a greater escalation of danger to heighten their own enjoyment in their crime. She’d once consulted on a case where a serial rapist attacked females in their own home while family members were sleeping down the hall.

“It’s a good thought.” Cam was silent for a moment. “The Van Wheton girls didn’t report being approached by any suspicious strangers in the last few months, but all the offender needs is the ruse. He just has to convince the victim he has access to the loved one. It’d take even more planning, though. Not only would he have to stalk the victim, he’d have to acquire in depth knowledge about their family members.”

He shook his head. “Hell, it’s all supposition at this point. Right now we can’t even be sure that Van Wheton was taken by the same twisted bastard burying bodies around Des Moines.”

No one said anything in response to that. But Sophia knew that the more time that passed without a word from Van Wheton the likelier it was that the offender they were trailing had found another victim. She was as certain of it as she was that she’d found another commonality in the victimology analysis.

She sat back, pulling out her phone and bringing up the copy of the notes she kept on it. Women with dependents, she typed slowly, squinting in the darkness. It was reasonable to conclude the offender managed to convince his victims that he had the ability to hurt their loved ones if he wasn’t obeyed unquestioningly. Instilling that sort of fear would be exhilarating to the type of sadist they were seeking. Wielding absolute control over his victims added to his godlike mentality. And what could be more godlike than to hold their lives in his hand? She made a mental note to update her offender profile before turning in that night.

A sneaky sliver of memory supplied her with a visual image of the Van Wheton girls, home with their grandparents. First a tragedy had taken their father, and now their mother was missing. And try as she might, Sophia couldn’t imagine this thing ending happily for the two.

There were few other early risers in the motel’s complimentary breakfast bar. Sophia used the relative quiet to enjoy her yogurt and juice while she updated the victim analysis and emailed it to members of the investigative team. She was halfway through the Minneapolis Tribune when Cam walked in, making a beeline for the coffee.

She tilted her head to consider him. His charcoal suit fresh shave gave him an outwardly civilized appearance, at least to the unwary. The more observant would note the narrowed gaze and straight hard line of his mouth and make sure to remove themselves from his path. At least until he’d had his first dose of caffeine.

Sophia watched in mild amusement as he filled a cup halfway with coffee and then paused to drink before pouring more. He turned away from the machine as he sipped, his eyes meeting hers from across the room. But she wasn’t prepared for what she saw in them when he caught sight of her.

Heat. It flared in his gaze, frankly carnal. It stole her breath, had her stomach clenching in a tight hard fist. She’d seen that look often in the short time they were together, but not at all since she’d delivered her carefully constructed speech ending it between them. She’d almost convinced herself that his feelings had changed.

It had certainly been more comfortable to believe that. Shaken, she glanced away, her gaze darting back to him when he slipped into a chair at her table.

“Sophie,” was all he said by way of greeting. His voice was gravelly in the morning, sandpaper dragged over silk. To her regret, his eyes had taken on a familiar guarded expression. “Not surprising to find you up at the crack of dawn. But at least you’re not singing today. It’s a scientific fact that everyone hates a morning person, but singing at dawn is cause for justifiable homicide.”

She picked up her juice, something inside her easing at the banter. He’d caught her in a duet with Taylor Swift while she made the morning coffee one day and hadn’t let her live it down. “Justifiable? Odd thing to hear from someone in law enforcement. And studies actually show that morning people overall are happier than night owls.” She brought the juice to her lips, eyed him over the rim of the glass. “Something for you to consider when you awake snarling and lethal.”

“Well, of course they’re happier,” he countered, reaching over to help himself to the sports section. “They’ve got the world arranged to their timeline, don’t they? The rest of us dance to their schedule. How would you morning larks like it if the workday started at a decent hour—say noon—and lasted until nine PM?”

Tipping her glass in a slight salute at his point, she conceded, “I wouldn’t fare so well. My mind is usually mush by eight.”

“That explains a lot, since when we met up at Mickey’s it was after ten.”

Her hand froze in the act of returning her glass to the table. He didn’t appear to notice. His gaze was lowered to a baseball headline. But she knew intuitively that the verbal grenade hadn’t been lobbed casually.

Choosing her words with care, she said, “I guess you could say I was having a bit of a pity party for myself that night. I was grateful you interrupted it. I detest people who insist on feeling sorry for themselves, even if it’s me.
Especially
if it’s me.”

He gave up the pretense of reading. “You don’t strike me as the wallowing type.”

“Ah, but I was.” Sophia thought back to that night a few short weeks ago. Somehow the wound that had been so fresh and raw on the evening in question had dissipated to an irritating occasional sting. She knew that could be attributed to the man seated across from her. But although Cam Prescott summoned a tangled host of unidentified emotions, gratitude wasn’t among them. “I’d just heard from my ex-husband.” Idly, she played with the strap of her iPad cover. “A courtesy call to let me know that he was getting re-married.”

Cam raised one dark brow. “And was it a courtesy?” He reached for his coffee again.

“Oh, probably. Douglas and I still maintain a cordial relationship.” She gave a wry smile. “Our divorce was boringly amicable. We’d grown apart, with differing ideas about our careers, our futures. I was living in Des Moines by then, and he was still teaching at the University of Iowa. Although my walking into his university office to find him having sex with his teaching assistant on top of his desk hastened the demise of our long distance marriage, its ending was probably inevitable. He was never happy with my decision to leave teaching to focus on my forensic research and private practice.”

He choked a little at that, putting the cup down with a speed that had its contents sloshing dangerously close to the edge. “Let me get this straight. You caught him banging a grad student and your divorce was amicable? Most women I know would have been lunging for the nearest sharp instrument.”

She could feel herself coloring. “I’m not very adept in the art of making scenes, but believe me, any number of murderous responses occurred. But instead of acting on them I just stood shell-shocked, long enough for him to spring to his feet, pull up his pants and demand to know why I was there.”

His fascination was obvious. “Please tell me you had least punched him then. One good right jab to the gut.”

That surprised a laugh from her. Although the thought satisfied in hindsight, she hadn’t been capable of it at the time. “Again, out of character for me. I told him very calmly that we would discuss it at home and then I left. It wasn’t until I got back to my car that I remembered we didn’t share a home anymore. And really, what was there to discuss, other than the bitter observations about his being the offspring of a promiscuous canine. Instead of going to his house—our house—I drove back to my condo in Des Moines. After a week of ignoring his calls I was calm enough to speak to him about a divorce. He concurred.”

He stared at her so long she began to fidget. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Everything. You’re endlessly fascinating. Go on. You said he called to tell you he was getting remarried, sending you into a tail spin.”

“No, it was the news that he was about to become a father that proved to be tail spin material,” she corrected. And yes, that memory still had bite. “We had both agreed that we wouldn’t have children, that we’d focus on our careers and our research. He’d reminded me often of what happened to academics who took time off for the mommy track. And he’d come from a very dysfunctional home and had little interest in ‘propagating a brood’ as he called it. We’d been in agreement.” They had been, hadn’t they? They’d discussed having a family in the same way they had discussed everything—books, philosophy, and work. With logic and well-formulated pros and cons, the way reasonable people did. She imagined her own parents, both professors at the University of Michigan, had held similar discussions before reaching the decision to have an only child groomed to follow in their footsteps.

But when she’d left teaching, oddly enough the topic had never arisen again, even with the change in circumstances.

“So the cheating bastard that you divorced several years ago called to let you know he’d knocked up his latest squeeze and was marrying her. You rightly felt a little betrayed since he’d convinced you not to have kids while you were together, but here he was ready to dive into daddy-hood with someone a decade or so younger. At least I assume he hasn’t lost his taste for college co-eds?”

She shook her head. “But in fairness, we had agreed…”

“Yeah, you said.” He reached for his coffee again, drained the cup. “You’ve got more self-restraint than any ten women I could name, but even the most controlled woman could be forgiven for going out to hang one on when they find out…ah.” He set the empty cup down with a carefully controlled movement.

Mystified, she inquired, “Ah…what?”

“So you and me…that was rebound sex. Or revenge sex. Maybe both.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “It certainly was not. I don’t make a habit of getting buzzed and going home with men in a misguided effort to get back at a long-time ex. That behavior would be juvenile and self-destructive.”

The man at the next table—who until that point had been happily spreading cream cheese on his three bagels—was staring at them with rapt fascination. Her furious scowl diverted his interest back to his breakfast. Lowering her voice, she leaned toward Cam. “I should have known you’d put the most tawdry slant on our relationship.”

“Did I say it was tawdry?” Unperturbed he returned his focus to the sports section. Turned a page. “There’s not a man alive who minds being used for rebound sex. Revenge sex would be a little bitter, but on second thought, you have too much class for that. So it was definitely rebound sex.”

It occurred to her that she felt more sheer fury toward this man than she had when she’d walked in on Douglas bent over his teaching assistant. “It. Was. Not. You are, without a doubt, the most illogical, insufferable…”

When he gave her an indulgent smile she was shocked to feel her fingers curl into a fist. “Of course it was. Douglas—pansy name, by the way—did a number on your confidence. He’s bragging about moving on, starting a family with someone else even though he convinced you to set aside any parenting plans….”

She gritted out the words from between clenched teeth. “We both agreed…”

He barreled on as if she hadn’t responded. “You were at a low point. You felt rejected and unwanted. Rebound sex is the perfect solution. Explains a lot, actually.”

Sophia wondered fleetingly if it were possible to strangle a man with a newspaper. To snatch the pages from his hand, roll them up and wrap them around his throat. “For the last time, whatever there was between us was not rebound sex. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”